May 5 is Kodomo-no-hi. Originally it was called Boy’s Festival and was for celebrating boys’ growing up, but now it has become a day to celebrate children in general. On this day, families with boys set out dolls for the Boy’s Festival, patterned after warriors and heroes, and fly carp streamers. Carp have the strength to swim even up waterfalls and have long been taken as symbols of success in life. The day also features the practice from long ago of taking a bath with sweet flags, plants reputed to have medicinal effect, and it is also essential to make an offereing to the traditional Japanese confections of rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves and rice cakes wrapped in oak leaves.
Hinamatsuri occurs on March 3 and is an occasion to pray for young girls’ growth and happiness. Most homes with girls display dolls for the Doll’s Festival and dedicate to them peach blossoms, rice cake cubes, special colored and diamond-shaped rice cakes, white sake, and other items. The origin of hinamatsuri is an ancient Chinese practice in which the sin of the body and misfortune are transferred to a doll and washed away by setting the doll in a river to drift away. When this practice spread to Japan, it was linked to girl’s playing with dolls and, in the Edo Period (1603-1867), was developed into the hinamatsuri.
Hina are small dolls for girls and have existed since the Heian Period (794-1185). They took their present from in the Edo Period (1603-1867). A “doll Emperor and Empress in ancient costume,” patterned after the Emperor and Empress, are placed on the highest tier of a five- or seven-tiered stand covered with a red carpet, and under them come the “Minister of the Right, Minister of the Left,” the “three court ladies,” and the “five court musicians,” among others. However, in recent times, more and more homes have simplified this by setting out only the Emperor and Empress dolls.
White, concentrated saké is called shirozaké. The manufacturing process is different form regular sake; it is made by blending a sweet kind of sake and low-class distilled spirits (shōchū) with steamed glutinous rice and rice malt. It is not a regular alcoholic beverage; with its sweetness, it is mostly drunk by women and girls on special days like the Doll’s Festival (Hina-Matsuri). Meanwhile, amazaké also has a sweet taste and is served mainly at Shinto shrines for New Year’s and other festivals and is also drunk in homes in the cold winter. This sake is brewed by blending malted rice with rice gruel.
